Archetypes

1
Archetypes Journey of the Hero

• Central character is naïve and callow
• Meets monsters or monstrous men
• Has a strange wise being as a teacher (mentor)
• Yearns for a beautiful lady (can be
  guide/inspiration)
• Must go on a journey, learn a lesson, change in
  some way, and return home
• Can cross a body of water/travels on a bridge
• Born and raised in rural setting

2
Archetypes Journey of the Hero

• Origin is mysterious or loses parents at a young
  age, will be raised by animals or wise guardian
• Returns to the land of his birth in disguise or
  as an unknown
• Hero is special, one of a kind could represent
  whole nation or culture
• Struggles for something valuable/important
• Has help from divine or supernatural forces

3
Archetypes Journey of the Hero

• Often has a guide/guides
• Undergoes some type of ritual after
  initiation/rite of passage
• Is given magical protective devices
• Has a loyal band of companions
• Makes stirring speech to followers
• Engages in tests/contests of strength
  (physical/mental) and shows pride in his
  excellence

4
Archetypes Journey of the Hero

• Goes through a rite of passage or initiation
  (changes/matures as story goes on)
• Suffers an unhealable wound (not always physical
  sometimes emotional/spiritual)
• Goes to a dark, terrible place sometimes
  descends into the underworld where he learns an
  important lesson. This is a symbol for facing
  death.
• Wins what he fights for/ is united or re-united
  with what he cares for

5
Archetypes Journey of the Hero

• Emerges to right a wrong of society/people
• Reminds people of lost or corrupted values
• Behaves to excess
• Prepared to die at any moment
• Fights for glory
• Sees beyond the vision of the present
• Chooses the short/glorious life of battle or the
  long life of the maturing journey

6
Archetypes Journey of the Hero

• Standard of excellence exceeds the ordinary
• Must be tested and MUST suffer

7
Archetypes The Epic

• Story begins in medias res (middle of action)
• Takes place in early stages of a nations history
• Good/evil struggle to win hero
• Long journeys, wars, obstacles to overcome
• Is very long, may span a generation or more
• Has a multiplicity of characters from all walks
  of life
• Contains contests of physical or mental strength

8
Archetypes Symbolic Places

• The threshold gateway to new world the hero
  must enter to change and grow
• The underworld the encounter with the dark side
  of the self fear of death
• The wilderness (passion, lawlessness the id the
  subconscious chaos)
• happy forest -prairie/frontier -sea (mother of
• Haunted forest -jungle all l life)
• Hearth -primeval forest infinity
  imagination

9
Archetypes Symbolic Places

• River the stream of time and flow of
  circumstance purity regained sin washed away
• Garden (productive/idyllic state of innocence/
  reconciliation, peace, harmony with nature,
• Wasteland (sterility, infertility, dearth of
  inspiration, hopelessness lack of creativity
  product of industrial technology and spiritual
  deprivation in modern world
• City (order law, harmony rigidity
  civilization in the fallen world, corruption
  and hypocrisy)

10
Archetypes Symbolic Places

• Rock stony place of suffering
• Crossroads place of decision, penance,
  self-denial
• Desert-place of purity self-awareness,
  deprivation solitude loneliness place of
  lonely quest for meaning
• Maze/labyrinth (puzzling dilemma or great
  uncertainty the search for the dangerous
  monster inside the self journey to the heart
  of darkness
• Winding stair arduous and dangerous way to
  unknown

11
Archetypes Symbolic Places

• Wheel (fortune circle of life death and
  rebirth, cycle of nature
• Castle (strong place of safety holds treasure or
  princess may be enchanted or bewitched)
• Tower (strong place of evil or isolation of self)

12
Archetypes Symbolic People

• Hero characterized by self-sacrifice, will
  endure separation and hardship for the sake of
  his people. He must pay a price to attain his
  goal. He takes the path from the self as it is
  to a new way of being. The heros journey often
  involves separating from the familiar to enter a
  new, unfamiliar, challenging world, then a return
  to the ordinary, but now expanded world. The
  pattern of the heroic journey is often
• Fight
• Flight
• Learn
• Return

13
Archetypes Symbolic People

• Mentor/counselor teaches the hero gives him
  gifts(weapons, food, magic, information) older
  wiser can serve as a conscience
• Threshold guardian tests the heros courage and
  worthiness to begin the journey shows the
  journey will be difficult
• Herald announces the challenge which begins
  the heros journey (can be a person or a piece
  of information which puts time out of joint
  and upsets the balance of the heros world)

14
Archetypes Symbolic People

• Shadow worthy opponent with whom the hero must
  struggle in a fight to the end/must be
  destroyed, neutralized, or assimilated
• Trickster clown, mischief-maker sometimes ally
  or companion of the hero/represents the force of
  cunning pitted against opponents who are
  stronger or more powerful
• Scapegoat hero who must die in order to atone
  for the peoples wrongdoing and to restore the
  nation to health
• Stranger

15
Archetypes Symbolic People

• Prisoner/outcast
• Monster the heros dark self the prince who
  has been turned into the beast the other the
  double
• Demonic adversary a villain, represents the
  forces of evil, Satan, chaos, and darkness
  almost as strong as the hero may take monstrous
  form (Grendel)
• Dwarf
• Country bumpkin/simpleton/holy fool a moral
  innocent in a world of shady operators
• orphan

16
Archetypes Symbolic People

• self-made man
• frontier hero (at ease in the wilderness)
• Demon lover
• Faithful companion (or group of
  companions)/confidant
• Animal companion
• Warrior
• Blind seer/the one-eyed gambler
• La belle dame sans merci/temptress/siren/femmefata
  le

17
Archetypes Symbolic People

• Unfaithful wife (Guinevere)
• Great mother earth mother protector of good,
  home, and family associated with warmth,
  security, growth, and fertility
• Terrible mother wicked stepmother, the witch,
  associated with evil, fear, death
• Avenging mother (Demeter/Persephone)
• Harpy
• Fury
• Harlot
• Ruined maiden

18
Archetypes Symbolic People

• Virgin sacrifice
• Soul mate/beautiful lady
• Damsel in distress
• Princess in the tower (unattainable, therefore
  desirable, beauty)
• Platonic ideal
• Star-crossed lovers (Lancelot/Guinevere
  Romeo/Juliet

19
Archetypes Symbolic Actions

• Task action which the hero must perform in
  order to save his people/marry the princess/find
  himself, etc.
• Initiation ordeal undergone by the hero in
  order to attain full status/maturity
• Journey representative of journey of life,
  hero's path, and leads through danger, hardship,
  ordeals and other tests of strength, maturity,
  and wisdom on the way to the goal. The hero
  encounters both people and tasks on the journey
  which teach and strengthen him.

20
Archetypes Symbolic Things

• Unhealable wound
• Magic weapon
• Water the mystery of creation birth/death,
  resurrection/purification fertility and growth
  (raingrace, growth, restoration of life)
• Whirlpool destructive power of fate/nature
• Fire creativity passion
• Light intellect grace
• Wind soul spirit inspiration

21
Archetypes Symbolic Things

• Fog uncertainty
• Ice snow rigidity, death, lack of feeling
• Ships the microcosm mankinds voyage
• through time and space

22
Elements of the Heros Journey

• Heros call to adventure
• Refusal of the call
• Supernatural aid
• Crossing the threshold/guardian of the threshold
  (going into a new world/external change)
• By force
• By chance
• Through a mistake or blunder
• By choice

23
Elements of the Heros Journey

• Belly of the whale (rebirth of the hero/inward
  change)

24
Types of the Journey of the Hero

• Quest for identity
• Journey of knowledge (quest of kings)
• Epic journey to find the promised land/find the
  good city
• Tragic quest journey to the crossroads
• Quest for vengeance
• Quest to rid the land of danger
• Warriors journey to save his people
• Fools errand
• Search for love (rescue the princess)

25
Types of the Journey of the Hero

• Grail quest (quest for human perfection)

26
Universal Patterns

• Cycles in Nature
• -waxing/waning of the moon
• -seed, plant, decay, new seed
• -birth, life, death, rebirth
• -spring, summer, fall, winter
• -day and night
• Cycles in Human Life
• -birth, youth, maturity, aging, death, spiritual
• rebirth
• -

27
Universal Patterns

• Cycles in Human Life
• -birth, youth, maturity, aging, death, spiritual
• rebirth
• -love, loss, loving again
• -trying, failure, trying again, success
• -order, disruption, order restored

28
Universal Patterns

• Patterns in Art and Nature
• -faced with the inevitability of failure, loss,
  and death, fearful humans seek reassurance from
  the cyclical patterns we observe in nature,
  which all, end in rebirth. We hope our human
  lives follow that same pattern.
• -Stories we tell, songs we sing, the paintings
  and dances we create express our desire to find
  
• meaning in our lives and immortality after our
  deaths. They reflect the basic conflict we see
  in human experience

29
Universal Patterns

• What is forces of evil
• vs. Or vs.
• What ought to be desire for civilization
  /
• progress
• Stories speak of our universal human quest to
  find or recapture the lost goodness of our
  lives.

30
Colors and Archetypes

• Black (darkness) chaos death the unconscious
  evil melancholy
• Red blood sacrifice violent passion disorder
• Green growth sensation hope
• Yellow corruption
• White purity and innocence